This collection of essays on Turgenev, Goncharov, Conrad, Dostoevsky, Blok, Briusov, Gorkii, Pasternak and Nabokov represents diverse voices but is also unified. One invariant is the recurring distinction between culture and civilization and the vision of Russia as the bearer of culture because it is barbaric. Another stance advocates the synthesis of sense and sensibility and the vision of Apollo and Dionysus creating a civilized culture together. Those voices that delight in the artificiali...

The legendary Russian biography series, The Lives of Remarkable People, has played a significant role in Russian culture from its inception in 1890 until today. The longest running biography series in world literature, it spans three centuries and widely divergent political and cultural epochs: Imperial, Soviet, and Post-Soviet Russia. The authors argue that the treatment of biographical figures in the series is a case study for continuities and changes in Russian national identity over ti...